These national occupational standards are a really helpful list of knowledge, and skills founded on very well thought out and set of values. Have a look and see if you can use them to write job descriptions, put short courses together or just stare at them and…

Have a look at this BBC report about Andy Burnhams choice of deputy Mayors. What is interesting is the areas of responsibility they have and the contribution that people that are members of NatCAN may be able to play or contribute to.

Today marks 100 days since I took over as director of Involve. Over that time we’ve been hard at work to develop a new strategy for the organisation that both responds to the current context — turning the tide back in favour of an open, participatory and deliberative democracy — and builds towards a long-term transformation of our political system.…

Food banks handed out a record number of meals last year after the chaotic introduction of universal credit, the government’s flagship welfare overhaul, left claimants unable to afford meals when their benefits were delayed.

Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal for ‘Peoples’ Quantitative Easing’ — public investment paid for using money printed by the Bank of England — has provoked criticism, including an intervention by Labour’s shadow Chancellor Chris Leslie. It seems the anti-Corbyn wing of the Labour party has…

Driven by warming air and water temperatures, Arctic sea ice continues its death spiral. A big new crack has been found in a major outlet glacier of the Greenland ice sheet, whose disintegration is speeding up.

Once again, my friend Jonathan Sugarman, the Irish/UniCredit whistleblower, is to appear before a public body and attempt to put on the record what those in power and their friends in the banks have tried for a decade to suppress.

On Thursday Jonathan is to testify before The Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach. Jonathan was invited to testify some weeks ago. The invitation was for…

Hundreds of thousands of children are being exposed to illegal levels of damaging air pollution from diesel vehicles at schools and nurseries across England and Wales, a joint investigation by the Guardian and Greenpeace’s investigations unit has revealed.…

The NHS is experiencing the longest and most severe slowdown in funding in its history. This has raised questions about the sustainability of its funding model.

The way that health care is funded varies between different countries. Here we explain the main models used to finance health care: taxation, private health insurance and social health insurance. We outline how each model works in its purest form, while…

A bare couple of months after Trump’s inauguration, he is being widely touted as the worst president in US history. His bombast, splenetic tweets, unsavoury remarks about women, and scapegoating of minorities provide plenty of ammunition for opponents to vilify the new leader of the…

The struggle for the vote for workers and for women was resisted at every stage, and when universal suffrage was finally won, every effort was made to blunt and control its impact through institutional devices. These included second chambers, disproportional electoral systems,…

The Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) or investment court system (ICS) has a number of iterations. It is a system through which individual companies can sue countries for alleged discriminatory practices. One small example is where the tobacco company Philip Morris sued Uruguay after having enacted strict laws aimed at promoting public health. ISDS is found in international investment agreements, such as the Energy Charter Treaty, TTP, CETA, TTIP and the…

In the next few weeks a new mega prison, HMP Berwyn, in north Wales, will open its gates and the Ministry of Justice will start the process of filling this new mega prison with prisoners from across the country. Once fully operational it will hold more than 2,000 people, making it the…

The struggle for the vote for workers and for women was resisted at every stage, and when universal suffrage was finally won, every effort was made to blunt and control its impact through institutional devices. These included second chambers, disproportional electoral systems,…

Being a member of parliament is a full-time job – as I know from my personal experience, as George Osborne’s predecessor. Being a newspaper editor is also a full-time job. Giving external advice and speeches, however well remunerated, also takes time. Doing all three together, it seems to me, would require the…

Tell you what, I haven’t half enjoyed all this stability David Cameron promised at the last election. “Britain faces a simple and inescapable choice,” he tweeted solemnly, “stability and strong government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband.”

Who needs The Walking Dead: if you ever want to scare yourself for kicks, imagine the chronic instability we would now be living through if Miliband had become prime minister.…